1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of networking. More specifically, the present invention relates to optical networking module employed in high speed network trafficking equipment, such as 10 gigabit optical-electrical routers or switches.
2. Background Information
With advances in integrated circuit, microprocessor, networking and communication technologies, increasing number of devices, in particular, digital computing devices, are being networked together. Devices are often first coupled to a local area network, such as an Ethernet based office/home network. In turn, the local area networks are interconnected together through wide area networks, such as SONET networks, ATM networks, Frame Relays, and the like. Of particular importance is the TCP/IP based global inter-network, the Internet. Historically, data communication protocols specified the requirements of local/regional area networks, whereas telecommunication protocols specified the requirements of the regional/wide area networks. The rapid growth of the Internet has fueled a convergence of data communication (datacom) and telecommunication (telecom) protocols and requirements. It is increasingly important that data traffic be carried efficiently across local, regional and wide area networks.
As a result of this trend of increased connectivity, increasing number of applications that are network dependent are being deployed. Examples of these network dependent applications include but are not limited to, the world wide web, email, Internet based telephony, and various types of e-commerce and enterprise applications. The success of many content/service providers as well as commerce sites depend on high speed delivery of a large volume of data across wide areas. In turn, the trend leads to increased demand for high speed data trafficking equipment, such as high speed optical-electrical routers or switches and so forth.
In the early generations of optical-electrical networking trafficking equipment, separate individual optical, optical-electrical and protocol processing components were employed. Moreover, multiple protocol processing components had to be employed, as each component performed data link and physical sub-layer processing for a corresponding protocol. Further, these separate components were typically developed or available from different vendors, with each component having its own approach and interface to configuration and operational management. As a result, an optical network trafficking equipment designer/manufacturer has had to work and deal with the optical, electrical and protocol processing aspects separately, as separate components, and often via very different interfaces. As system complexity and data rates have increased, this engineering challenge has become increasingly difficult to solve, resulting in time-to-market and cost disadvantages.
Recently, some component suppliers, such as Network Elements, Inc, of Beaverton, Oreg., have begun to offer optical network modules that integrate the optical and optical-electrical components. Representatives of these integrated modules are Network Elements' ONM10PHY and ONM10PHYOXC optical networking modules. These integrated modules are designed for high speed optical networking applications in the realm of 10 Gb/s DWDM, SONET/SDH, and Ethernet LAN and WAN. These integrated modules perform physical layer functions such as optical-to-electrical and electrical-to-optical conversion, clock and data recovery, transmit clock multiplication, serialization and deserialization functions.
While the availability of these integrated components improve the productivity of high speed network traffic equipment designers, the handling of data link and physical sub-layer processing for different protocols have fundamentally remained the responsibilities of separate ASICs from different vendors. At 10 Gb/s and beyond, the integration of these processing ASICs with optoelectronic and software systems becomes increasingly difficult, even as the continuing growth of the Internet demands faster time to market and higher system flexibility. A need exists to reduce the complexity of designing optical network trafficking equipment.